On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
The first principle of the system is to shew the children gentleness and kindness , so as to win iheir affections , and always to treat them as rational creatures , cultivating their reason , and appealing to it . It w equally essential to impress upon their minds
the necessity of industrious and virtuous conduct to their happiness , and the inevitable effects of the opposite behaviour , in reducing them from the comfort in which they now live to the state of misery from which they were rescued . A constant and even minute
superintendence , at every instant of their lives , forms of course part of the system \ and , as may easily be supposed , the elder boys , who have already profited by the care of the master , aid him in extending it to the new comers , who for this purpose are judiciously distributed among them .
These are , I am aware , very general principles , and upon their judicious application to practice in each particular instance , according to the diversities of individual character , their whole virtue depends . But a somewhat more specific notion of the plan may be formed by observing , that it is never allowed for a moment to be
absent from their thoughts , that ma * nual labour , in cultivating the ground , is the grand and paramount care which must employ their whole lives , and upon which their very existence
depends . To this every thing else is made subordinate ; but with this are judiciously connected a variety of intellectual pursuits . At their hours of relaxation , their amusements have
an instructive tendency ; certain hours are set apart for the purposes of learning ; and while at work in the fields , the conversation , without interrupting for a moment the necessary business of their lives , is always directed towards those branches of knowledge
in which they are improving themselves during the intervals of labour . Besides writing and ciphering ( at which they are very expert ) they apply themselves to geography and history , and to the different branches of
natural history , particularly mineralogy and botany , in which they take a singular delight , and are considerable proficients . The connexion of these with agriculture render them most appropriate studies for those poor children 5 3 ii < l ? s their daily la-
Untitled Article
bpur brings them constantly into contact with the objects of those sciences , a double relish is thus afforded at once to the science and the labour . You may see one of them every now and then stepping aside from the furrow where several of them have been working , to deposit a specimen , of a
plant , for his little hortus siccus , or cabinet j and Mr . Fellenberg rarely goes into the field where any of them are labouring , without being called upon to decide some controversy that has arisen upon matters relating to mineralogy or botany , or the parts of ! chemical science which have
mostimmecHate relation to agriculture . There is one other subject which is ever present to their minds : I mean a pure and rational theology . Mr . Fellenberg is deeply imbued himself with the sense of religion ; and it enters into all his schemes for the
improvement of society . Regarding the state of misery in which the poorest classes live , a&rather calculated ( if I may use his own expression ) to make them believe in the agency of a devil than of a God , his first care , upon rescuing those children from that wretchedness ,
is to inspire them with the feelings of devotion which he himself warmly entertains , and which he regards as natural to the human heart , whea misery has not chilled nor vice hardened it . Accordingly , the conversation , as well as the habits of the
poor at Hofwyl , partake largely of religious influence . The evidences of design observable in the operations of nature , and the benevolent tendency of those operations in the great majority of instances , form constant topics of discourse in their studies , and
during the labours of the day ; and though no one has ever observed the slightest appearance of fanaticism pr of superstition , ( against which , in truth , the course of instruction
pursued is the surest safeguard , ) yet ample testimony is borne by all travellers to the prevailing piety of the place . One of these has noted au affecting instance of it , when the harvest once required the labourers to work for an hour or
two after night-fall , and the full moon rose in extraordinary beauty over the magnificent mountains that surround the plain of Hofwyl . Suddenly , smsj if with one accord , the poor children began to chant a hyiuu which they
Untitled Article
ilfr- Brougham ' s Description of HofwyL 731
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1818, page 731, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2483/page/3/
-